Andy Cheng

Shares of fashion retailer I.T surged as much as 23.6 per cent to a record yesterday after the company said it would buy the 50 per cent stake in its loss-making mainland venture it does not own and two other retail stores for HK$263 million.

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Chan Ka-keung, a former professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, yesterday demonstrated how a teacher can also become a good student within a month: he cut short his speech in the Legislative Council.

Hong Kong's new homeowners are borrowing less to buy their property, a trend that is set to intensify a price war between banks for a bigger slice of the housing market, according to mReferral Mortgage Brokerage.

The loan to valuation rate on mortgages dropped to 61.6 per cent in May from 68.9 per cent in 2002, the brokerage said.

Listing candidate Belle International, the mainland's biggest women's shoe retailer, said each of the 1,000 new outlets it planned to open every year could start contributing profit after one month of operation because of the high margins in such businesses.

Jiahua Stores Holdings, a Shenzhen-based supermarket and department store operator that aims to raise up to HK$260 million in an initial public offering this week, set its price-earnings at between 15 and 18 times, lower than that of its mainland peers.

The mainland's retail sales will probably grow by a higher than expected 14.5 per cent this year as disposable incomes maintain their fast and steady growth, the China General Chamber of Commerce says.

10pc stake in Parkson Retail priced at upper end in mildly oversubscribed offer

Malaysian conglomerate Lion Diversified Holdings is set to reap as much as US$171 million through the disposal of a 10 per cent stake in mainland department store operator Parkson Retail Group, according to market sources.

Coastal Greenland, a Hong Kong-listed mainland property developer, says it will continue to add to its residential land bank even though sales in key cities have fallen since May, when Beijing introduced more austerity measures designed to cool the property market.

More than 100 homosexual activists brave downpours to march through Causeway Bay yesterday demanding an end to discrimination. Marchers from the mainland and Taiwan joined local homosexuals in the second International Day Against Homophobia Hong Kong Parade organised by 19 community groups.